Love and Guilt
by Tokugawa
Summary: What Shizuma's life is like 4 years post-show. How will she deal with the troubles of her past? Shizuma x Nagisa main pairing.
1. Chapter 1

_Shizuma stood in her darkened bedroom, staring out the window at the sunset, with a collage of colors filling her line of sight. Suddenly, a pair of arms wrapped around her waist, and a chin rested on her shoulder._

"_Kaori..." Shizuma whispered._

"_Isn't the sunset beautiful?" Kaori said softly. Shizuma turned around to face Kaori, and they embraced. She looked deeply into her lover's eyes, who stared lovingly back into hers. This was a moment she wished could go on forever. Shizuma leaned in and gently kissed her lover. The kiss deepened as their tongues began a battle of passion, and the silver haired girl closed her eyes as the world became euphoric around her._

_All of the sudden, the movement of Kaori halted, and she fell into Shizuma's arms. For a split second, she wondered what had happened, when she noticed moisture on her arms. It was blood. She looked at Kaori's body, and to her great horror, Shizuma saw rivers of blood gushing from the other woman's chest, with a knife impaling her._

"_Kaori?" Shizuma screamed, "What happened? Kaori!" The black haired girl stared into the eyes of hell, and, between huge huffs of breath, glared at Shizuma right with her pink eyes and muttered, "How could you?"_

Shizuma jumped up in her bed as she awoke. She was panting severely and drenched in cold sweat. She briefly looked around, realizing that the dramatic event was only a dream. She then noticed Nagisa, sitting a few inches away from her on the other side of the bed, staring at Shizuma, looking startled.

"What's wrong Shizuma?" she asked.

"I'm fine," the silver haired beauty replied, still panting. "Just a bad dream."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Nagisa asked. At that images of the dream came back to her the blood-soaked floor the lifeless eyes of Kaori…

Shizuma turned away from Nagisa as tears began to roll down her cheeks. Nagisa sat there, not knowing what to do other than comfort the sobbing goddess. She crawled across the bed to Shizuma and gently wrapped her arms around her girlfriend's waist and rested her chin on her shoulder. The feelings of the dream returned to Shizuma, the way Kaori had wrapped her arms around her from behind like that… At this Shizuma suddenly swung around and slammed her hands into Nagisa's delicate shoulders and pushed her over the edge of the bed, and she barreled headfirst onto the floor.

Before Shizuma could react Nagisa stood up, tears streaming from her eyes, and ran out of the room and out of the house, bawling the whole way. Shizuma ran through the house after her but Nagisa was already out the door, long gone. Realizing the horrible truth of what just happened, Shizuma fell to her knees and sobbed uncontrollably. Not only had she lost Kaori, but she had lost the beautiful Nagisa as well. She continued sobbing for hours, and whenever she became close to calming down, the thought of Nagisa's scared, broken face and Kaori's blood-soaked body, she started sobbing all over again. The broken hearted woman rolled into a ball and cried the night away.

Shizuma awoke, realizing she had cried herself to sleep. Her apartment was horribly empty, the only noise being the humming of the mini-fridge. She hurt all over, her mind was whirling with the events of the previous night, she felt horrible about what she did, she had never regretted anything as much as this. Well, almost. She shakily struggled to stand up, trying to regain her composure. She straightened herself out, and slowly walked to the kitchen to eat. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the clock. It read 9:33am.

"Shit!" Shizuma exclaimed. Not only had she missed her morning classes, but she was late for work. She dashed out of her apartment, down the stairs, and out the front door. She abruptly hailed a taxi, got in, told the driver to hurry, and away they went. When Shizuma looked through the window, the reflection showed a disheveled woman looking back at her. Her hair was horribly messy, her eyes puffy, and still wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants from her sleeping. But at that time, she could care less about appearances. All she wanted was her beautiful, kind, gentle Nagisa. She would be willing to be dirt poor and unemployed as long as she could be with Nagisa, and at this rate, that could very well happen. She was already in hot water at her job, and with college to pay for, money was not plentiful. _It's ironic, _Shizuma thought, _I used to be the Etoile of 3 high class schools, but now I am working at a fast food restaurant and barely getting by. _But she easily got into college, having been Etoile after all, and went to New York with Nagisa to study literature. But she didn't leave for America immediately after she graduated St. Miator. As Shizuma road the taxi, her memories wandered back to the day she proclaimed her love for Nagisa, when they ran away into the forest….

_Shizuma and Nagisa laid curled up together on the forest floor, kissing each other in a gentle yet very passionate way. Their hands were intertwined and their bodies pressed together. Their bodies were completely in sync, their hearts beating as one. All of the sudden, Nagisa pulled her head away. Shizuma was startled as those perfect moments were so abruptly ended. _

"_What's wrong, Nagisa?" the older girl asked. Suddenly, Nagisa burst into tears. The crying was loud and horribly sorrowful. It hurt Shizuma deeply to hear the sorrowed cries of her lover. The silver goddess embraced her love, squeezing her into her body, as the younger girl sobbed into Shizuma's chest._

"_I don't want you to go!" Nagisa cried between fits of sobbing. _

"_What are you talking about Nagisa? I will never leave you, my love," Shizuma replied softly, trying her best to be comforting_

"_But you will!" Nagisa sobbed. "You are graduating this year and of course you will go to college and you'll be far away and we'll never see each other again!" So that is what's going on. Shizuma couldn't stand to see her little Nagisa in so much pain, so without giving it thought she said, "No Nagisa, I promise I will wait for you. I'll stay in this city for the next few years until you graduate. I promise to you my love, I would never do anything to hurt you, I would never leave you. I love you, Nagisa."_

_Nagisa looked up from her crying and stared deeply into Shizuma's ungodly beautiful eyes. She stayed like that for what felt like minutes as her tears went away._

"_Thank you, I know I could never live without you," Nagisa said softly. "I love you."_

_Although this had been the first time she said it, Shizuma knew it was true even since they had met that fateful day in the forest. The silver goddess leaned in and gently pressed her lips against Nagisa's. She then crawls over to climb on top of Nagisa, as they begin to kiss passionately, with tongues battling for dominance in a fury of love and passion. Shizuma pressed her hips up against Nagisa's, causing a moan to escape her mouth. _

"_I want you, Nagisa," Shizuma whispered in Nagisa's ear. Nagisa didn't need to reply for Shizuma to know that the feelings were mutual. Shizuma broke away for the kiss and began kissing and sucking of Nagisa's neck. The feeling was unbelievable for Nagisa, she wanted to explode, but what she truly wanted was to touch each and every inch of Shizuma's body. She did so as her hands moved seemingly on their own, feeling and massaging as she went, feeling all over her back and through her luscious hair. Shizuma began to feel all over Nagisa's body as well, kissing and sucking and biting after she massaged._

_The ventures between them continued until they made love, then and there, on the forest floor, and it was a moment that neither would ever forget. _

"Excuse me, ma'am, we've reach your destination." Shizuma's deep thought was broken by the cab driver alerting her. Being taken out of such a pleasant memory was irritating, but not a big problem. Shizuma exited the taxi, and prepared for her first day in years without her precious Nagisa.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Shizuma walked through the doors into place of employment, Burgerland, and saw the familiar sight of her fellow low level workers with hats and nametags. Being over an hour late, her coworkers took no notice to her, being deep inside their work.

"Shizuma, Shizuma, what will I do with you?" Shizuma swung around to notice her boss looming below her. He was a stout man, about a foot and a half shorter than Shizuma, with a balding head, and a scrunched, wrinkly face. He glared at Shizuma, his angry eyes staring her down. "Late and horribly out of dress," he stated with a grimace. "I mean, look at you! You're not wearing your uniform, and you know the rules about hair! If it is below the shoulders, it gets tied back, and another thing, the very most important thing to wear is a smile and you….."

Shizuma tuned out the complaining of her boss, who always got on her case and made Shizuma's time at this job a living hell. She realized that the reason she hated her job so much was because of the lack of respect she got there. As Etoile back in school, people greatly respected and looked up to her, now people treated her like dirt. In a way, Shizuma was glad she was about to get fired. She could then get away from her asshole boss and rude customers, and she could regain a bit of the self-respect she had lost from working there.

"Shizuma! Shizuma! Are you even listening to me?" Shizuma snapped out of her deep train of thought. She then noticed the many people in the restaurant staring at the two of them. "See what you did Shizuma?" her boss muttered, grabbing Shizuma's forearm, "You've made a scene, let's continue our little conversation in my office," he gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on Shizuma's arm, leading her briskly to the office. While half-walking-half-being-dragged behind the counter, Shizuma slipped on the damp floor, and fell to the ground, looking like more of a fool than she already did.

"Get up, you clumsy bitch," Shizuma's boss said. Shizuma struggled to her feet, although was tired of being told what to do by a shithead like him. She continued to stumble behind her boss to the office, at arrival. Her boss sat in his leather chair as Shizuma stood.

"So, you have been late twice before, and you know what happens on strike three," he began, and then added in a condescending tone, "Or do you Japanese not understand the rules of baseball?" He chuckled at his rude joke, while Shizuma glared at him. "Oh, don't look at me like that, you want to keep your job, don't you? Oh, who am I kidding there is no way you could keep your job after this. Well, there is one thing you could do…" The last line was said with a devious, evil grin. Shizuma was worried by his tone of voice. This request could be anything, but it didn't matter.

"You know what shithead? You don't have to fire me! I don't want to deal with your shit for another second. I quit." Although this choice of words wasn't the best for a future job reference, he deserved everything she said, and it felt pretty damn good to say it. After her choice words, Shizuma stomped out of the office, out of the restaurant, and down the street, never looking back.

As she walked in no particular direction, she thought about her actions from the past 24 hours, the way she hurt Nagisa (she cringed at the very thought of the event) and how she shouted at her boss. She had been on edge lately. It was obvious to her now. But what was wrong with her? Had old memories come back to hurt her? She hailed a cab and made her way back to her apartment. On the way, she considered the ghosts of her past, the events that she wished desperately to forget. She knew she had to tell someone.

Upon entering her apartment, Shizuma immediately noticed a rush of cold air, the apartment was freezing. She knew this was because she turned the heater off, and it was nearing winter, but she somehow felt that this coldness was not only in the room, but in her heart, without Nagisa.

She decided it was time that she talked to Nagisa again, and deeply apologize for what happened. She took her cell phone out of her pocket, and dialed Nagisa's phone number. But she couldn't bring herself to press TALK. _What could I even say to her? _Shizuma wondered, _I'm sorry I physically assaulted you, let's be together again! _She knew it wouldn't be that easy. She played a possibilities of how the conversation could go in her head, trying to decide which one would be best. She decided, however, that her apology should not be rehearsed; it should be spontaneous, coming directly from the heart. After minutes, she finally worked up the nerve to make the call, as she pressed TALK and placed the phone next to her ear.

Ring . . . . . ring. . . . The waiting was killing her. She had no idea what she should say or what was going to happen. After several rings, the phone went to voicemail. This prompted Shizuma to debate whether or not she should leave a voicemail. During her period of hesitation, the voice mail automatically started. The message went like this:

"Erm. . . .hi. . .Nagisa. .uh…..we should probably bring to attention the what happened last night and um, I'm really…." She hung up the phone before she could finish her sentence. Just the simple phone call caused her to break a sweat, and she felt very nervous about Nagisa getting her pathetic message.

She had no energy to make lunch for herself, so she just sat on the couch, staring into space, with her silver hair covering her eyes. She did this for hours, repeating two scenes in her head over and over again, the dream with Kaori, and what happened with Nagisa afterwards. It felt like the end of everything for her, her relation with Nagisa was broken, she lost her job, and worst of all the event of her past that she refused to acknowledge. .

Her thinking continued until she finally reached peaceful sleep. But even then, she dreamt of her and Nagisa in the forest, the first time they had met. As Shizuma was about the reach in kiss her forehead, Shizuma awoke at a loud ringing noise. After a few seconds, she realized the cell phone was ringing. Shizuma heaved herself up and went to answer it. She wondered who was calling her, she thought it might be Nagisa (a thought which highly worried her) or that it was a random friend of hers that she didn't care about that much. She had a lot of those; she was popular in her college, having many friends and few real enemies. That aspect of her life was positive, but hardly mattered with other things to think about.

"Hello?" Shizuma said groggily.

"Hello Shizuma," the voice replied. Shizuma couldn't believe her ears about who was calling her. They hadn't talked to each other at all since St. Miator. There was absolutely no reason Shizuma could think that this person would call her, or even have her number.

"We need to talk," Miyuki Rokujō said.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"Miyuki? Is that you? Why the hell are you calling me?" Shizuma asked, sounding rude without really meaning to.

"Shizuma, I don't have much time, Well, I have time but this long distance call is costing me a fortune. I am calling because I talked to Nagisa earlier. She didn't want to come talk to you herself so she asked me to do it for her," Miyuki spoke in her stern tone as she had always done before.

"So she actually wants to talk to me?" Shizuma said, more asking herself then asking Miyuki.

"Sort of. She told what happened between you two, and, well, what the fuck is wrong with you Shizuma! Nagisa has never done anything to hurt you, and that is how you repay her?"

"But-"

"No buts, Shizuma. I want you to apologize to Nagisa! But first, tell me, for the love of god why did you do it?"Shizuma was reminded of when she was a fourth year in school, and Miyuki was always reprimanding her. Some things just don't change. But she knew she had to tell her the truth.

"Ok, to make a long story short, she reminded me of an unpleasant event of my past and it just made me crazy, I didn't mean to hurt her at all, I would never hurt my little Nagisa. It's just that . . . She did something to remind me of Kaori." The call went silent for what felt like hours, but was really just a few seconds.

At long last Miyuki said firmly, "Well maybe you should tell that to Nagisa. She is hurt and confused, and she would feel better if she at least knew what was going on."

After another long pause, Shizuma replied, "I want to, but I don't know where she is or how to get ahold of her."

"I know where she is. I'll call her and tell her to come back to your apartment. I think this conversation needs to occur in person rather than on the phone."

"Ok, bye Miyuki."

"Good bye Shizuma, and don't mess this up," Miyuki replied, and then hung up her phone.

Shizuma knew that this time would come, but she didn't feel prepared for it. Her head hurt with the thought of seeing Nagisa again, having a face to face conversation, with no way to get out. Shizuma contemplated what she would say during their conversation, how much to reveal. She eventually decided to tell Nagisa everything, absolutely everything that happened with Kaori, the dream, everything. Hopefully Nagisa would understand the stress she was under with having to live with those kinds of things over her head. She could only hope right now though.

Not knowing what to do until Nagisa arrived, Shizuma turned the TV on. The channel that it was on had an unfunny sitcom on. Shizuma paid no attention to the TV though, as she paced nervously back and forth across the living room, sometimes stepping into the adjacent kitchen. After what felt like hours of waiting, there was finally a ring at the door. Shizuma sprung up in surprise, and then nervously stepped toward the door. She turned the doorknob slowly, as she pulled open the door as slowly as can be. There stood the love of her life, the one person that she could never live without, Aoi Nagisa.

"Hi," Shizuma said awkwardly.

"Hi," was the equally awkward reply.

"You want to come in?" Shizuma asked, sounding stupid as can be. "If we are going to talk, we should do it inside."

"Okay," Nagisa said quietly. Shizuma moved away from the threshold to allow Nagisa to enter. Nagisa settled down on the couch.

Shizuma offered Nagisa a cup of tea, which she silently accepted, and then Shizuma said, "I know I have some explaining to do. I promise, I will tell you everything. But what I want to say first is that I am so sorry. I can't express how sorry I am with words. I never ever meant to hurt you. I love you so much Nagisa, please forgive me," she was on the verge of tears during her desperate plea. Her face show the unbelievable sadness that was in her heart.

"But why did you do it?" Nagisa asked quietly, with an unreadable expression. Shizuma sighed.

"It's a very long story, but somebody has to hear it. It began 7 years ago, when I was a fourth year at St. Miator. My family was in charge of a large technology corporation, KatTech, and their main rivalry was a company called Masuki. This rivalry was horrible and bitter, the leaders of these two companies, one of which was my father, despised each other, and would literally murder each other if given the chance. During my third year, KatTech had the biggest business deal of their time in their hands, which would make my family, an especially my father, very rich. Before the deal was closed though, Masuki took it away. My father was furious about this, so angry that he created many plans to kill him. You see Nagisa, he was a rather mentally unstable man, and was obsessed with his honor. Soon afterwards, he found out that his competitor's daughter was transferring to my school, and from that he devised a plan. A horrible, horrible plan. He used me, he told me to get the daughter into a position so a hired assassin could take her out. He wanted me to have her killed." Shizuma was on the verge of tears during her story. Telling it out loud brought back memories she had worked hard to forget.

Nagisa had been silent the whole time, but suddenly she whispered, "That's horrible, but you would never do it though, right?" Shizuma sighed, and continued the story without directly acknowledging the question at hand.

"My father had always taught me that business is a dog eat dog world, and there are no things in business that are not fair. He would always say, 'All's fair in business and war.' So having been raised like that, I saw no problem with doing it. His daughter's name was Kaori."

Nagisa gasped. Everything she knew was starting to come together. Shizuma couldn't imagine what Nagisa must be feeling, probably overwhelmed.

Shizuma knew it would be difficult to say this part of the story, but it had to be done. She continued, "My father told me about his plan. He was going to have me get close to Kaori, lure her to her vacation home, where the assassin would come from behind and stab her. I was a bit skeptical, but I believed what my father had always told me about business and honor, so I agreed to it. Upon meeting her, she liked me instantly. I worked to get closer to her, and she fell into my trap quickly and easily. But then something unexpected happened. I developed actual feelings for this girl, I didn't only want to be with her because of the plan, but because I genuinely cared about her. The more I got to know her, the more I disagreed with my father's plan. She was a sweet, innocent young girl, who surely shouldn't die because of a grudge she had nothing to do with!" suddenly, Shizuma started shouting and she burst into sorrowful tears.

"Why?" she screamed. "Why did I have to hurt the one I loved so much?" Nagisa sat beside her, not knowing what to do, so she reached over and gently wrapped her arms around Shizuma in a caring embrace. "It's okay, Shizuma," she whispered. "You don't have to think about it if it hurts you that much. I would never want you to hurt because of me." The way Nagisa looked into Shizuma's eyes showed how much she loved her.

"B-but what I did to you! Don't you hate me for that? Don't you at least want to know why?" Shizuma mustered between huge huffs of breath. She loved that Nagisa was embracing her like that, she just didn't understand why.

"Because I love you," Nagisa said kindly, "I know that things must be hard for you having had those experiences. I don't know why you pushed me, but I know that you didn't do it because you don't care about me, which is all that really matters. And if you don't feel ready to tell me what happened, than that's okay. I don't want you to hurt Shizuma, I really don't."

There was a moment of silence after Nagisa spoke. "I love you too," Shizuma said as the tears ceased to spill from her eyes, "which is why you have to know the truth."

Nagisa nodded politely in acceptance, as Shizuma continued, "So, the closer I got to Kaori, the more strongly I felt for her. I knew that I had a responsibility to my family, but my feelings thought otherwise. Because of this, I didn't tell Kaori about the plan like I really wanted to, because I wanted to help her. But I couldn't bring myself to take her to the vacation home, I loved her far too much to lead her to her demise. So I eventually brought myself to tell my father that the plan was off. As you can imagine, he was not happy to hear that. He started screaming at me and going into an angry uproar. The last thing he said was that if I did not bring her to the vacation home tonight, he would have my younger sister and my mother tortured and later killed, then he hung up the phone. I was so scared after that, I didn't know what to do. So I devised a plan of my own. I planned to fake the death of Kaori by bribing the assassin beforehand, and saving her family and Kaori. In hindsight, I realize this was a flawed plan, but I was too hysterical at the time to realize it. Part of the plan actually worked though. I got my father to tell me the location of the assassin, so we could plan a little bit. I found the assassin, and gave him money to not kill her, and he took the bribe without much consideration. I felt a huge worry lifted off me at that time. 'In order to stage it properly, you and the girl still have to go to your vacation home,' the assassin had said. This made sense to me, so I agreed to it. That night, Kaori and I left Strawberry Dorms to go to my vacation home, and I expected it to be amazing. We went there and shared a, um, romantic time, and everything felt perfect. We were embracing each other when she suddenly went limp. I was terrified to see a mass of blood on the floor. At that moment I realized what happened, I remember holding her body in my arms for hours afterwards, crying and screaming her name. Part of my soul had been lost. That is the dream that I had Nagisa. I dreamt of Kaori's last moments. And the way you embraced me reminded me of the dream, so that is why I freaked out on you like that. I am deeply sorry, you know that I would never want to hurt you."

Silence swept the room for what felt like minutes. Shizuma thought about how she had finally revealed her greatest secret. But Nagisa was the best person to reveal it to.

At long last, Nagisa said, "I forgive you, Shizuma, and thank you for telling me this."

"Shall we go on as if nothing had happened?" Shizuma asked, as this is what she really wanted to do.

"Sure," Nagisa said in her cute way, then stood up and began walking toward the bedroom. "It's getting late though, I'm going to bed"

"I'll be there in a bit," Shizuma replied. Nagisa nodded and entered the bedroom. As Shizuma sat alone on the couch, she pondered what had happened. She was very glad she was about to tell someone, and Nagisa was a good one to tell. But then her troubles with her father were not all behind her. He was the reason she was sitting in an old couch instead of an executives leather chair, the reason she worked at a fast food restaurant instead of being in charge of a major company. After what happened with Kaori, Shizuma's father banished her from the family, and they haven't seen each other again since. Shizuma was the heir to the corporation, but it was not hers because of her father. Shizuma's blood began to boil as she thought, _now father, is the time of __**revenge.  
**_


End file.
